The Breaking Point
by Tettekete
Summary: If Elphaba could have pinpointed the exact moment she succumbed to her Wickedness, even just once, this was it. Oneshot.


**The Breaking Point**

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**Authors note: Ahh, another oneshot. And Thropp angst. I'll be updating _To Live Is To Learn How To Fly_ shortly... probably!  
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**I'm dedicating this to my lovely beta JennMaryn, for all her awesomeness and her inspiring writing. Enjoy!  
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Dust rose from the road as Elphaba swept silently along it, cloak swirling about her feet. The Munchkinlanders had retired to their homes, exhausted from all their nonsensical dancing and partying. Remnants of feasts and nationwide celebration littered the cobbles of yellow brick. It made her sick, all of it. The Munchkins, the attack's instigators, that farmhouse... the confetti and streamers scattered over bloodstained brick, drying in between the cracks.

Elphaba lowered her head, knowing well enough that she was alone but hiding her face beneath the wide brim of her pointed hat all the same. To hide from herself, if she could. She wasn't even sure why she had come back to Center Munch after the scene between herself and Glinda mere hours before, save for the unrelenting guilt that ate away at her when she thought of Nessarose. She strode quickly toward the site of the murder - for she was convinced that it was so -, and kneeled on the stained yellow cobbles at her sister's feet. With the shoes gone, all that remained was a figure even more pitiful than she had been in life. Something Nessa had hated with every fiber of her being. Elphaba lowered herself to the ground, pressing her hands against the splintered wood that had crushed out the life and soul of the Witch of the East.

She closed her eyes, trying to hold back the sting of tears. So, this was what it felt like to cry. The distinct burn under her eyelids could hardly compare to anything she hadn't unwillingly experienced. Hah, _pain. _Her chest rattled as she breathed, as she tried to hold herself together. She told herself that there was nothing she could have done, wheras in reality there was so much Nessarose had needed from her: Support, the love of an older sister, and things she could not even begin to comprehend. Elphaba had always taken care of her, until she could no longer provide anything... and the sense of failure hit Elphaba like a speeding bullet.

_Sister..._

Reaching out slowly, the Witch lightly brought her fingers to rest on one stripe-stocking clad foot, and whispered under her breath.

"Oh, Nessa... Forgive me. _Forgive me._"

It was ridiculous. No one could hear her, yet here she was, the Wicked Witch of the West begging for her sister's forgiveness. Without a soul. Without anything but her title. She felt something slip away from her then; something snapping deep within her conscience. Her sanity, was it? Her grasp on the life she was losing? Now a failed martyr without a cause, she was nothing. She had never been everything. Nessarose had _always_ meant more than she. The Witch broke down, hidden in the folds of her cloaks and the wide brimmed hat that had become her trademark.

Even _she_ was not exempt from grief.

After a moment, Elphaba finally tore herself from Nessa's crude burial site, and rose to her feet. Hardened. Shaking with fury and sadness and _oh, _it was all too much. She did not need all this useless emotion, but it poured from her nonetheless.

Elphaba was finished. Done with all of this. Her old was self beyond repair, and what good would _that_ do her now, anyhow? She had lost herself when she had lost everything, every battle, everything that held some meaning. Little by little, pieces of her had fallen away, and this was the result. It had started with Dr Dillamond, and it had ended with Nessarose.

She would have her revenge. The farm girl and her dimwitted companions would see that soon enough. Revenge was all she had to cling to, and she would have those shoes. The sparkling, gleaming reminders of her late sister; her downfall, her hate and her love... and Frex. His unwillingness to love her, for Nessarose had always been his precious daughter, and she was the forgotton child. And now, even after their deaths, even after that farm girl had walked off with them, Elphaba craved everything they represented. Perhaps even moreso. She could kill for them.

"I want those _shoes_," she snarled into the dead silence, her fingers curling around her broomstick.

If Elphaba could have pinpointed the exact moment she succumbed to her Wickedness, even just once, this was it.


End file.
